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There is, then a Providence, which permeates the Kosmos from
first to last, not everywhere equal, as in a numerical
distribution, but proportioned, differing, according to the
grades of place- just as in some one animal, linked from first to
last, each member has its own function, the nobler organ the
higher activity while others successively concern the lower
degrees of the life, each part acting of itself, and experiencing
what belongs to its own nature and what comes from its relation
with every other. Strike, and what is designed for utterance
gives forth the appropriate volume of sound while other parts
take the blow in silence but react in their own especial
movement; the total of all the utterance and action and
receptivity constitutes what we may call the personal voice, life
and history of the living form. The parts, distinct in Kind, have
distinct functions: the feet have their work and the eyes theirs;
the understanding serves to one end, the Intellectual Principle
to another.
But all sums to a unity, a comprehensive Providence. From the
inferior grade downwards is Fate: the upper is Providence alone:
for in the Intellectual Kosmos all is Reason-Principle or its
Priors-Divine Mind and unmingled Soul-and immediately upon these
follows Providence which rises from Divine Mind, is the content
of the Unmingled Soul, and, through this Soul, is communicated to
the Sphere of living things.
This Reason-Principle comes as a thing of unequal parts, and
therefore its creations are unequal, as, for example, the several
members of one Living Being. But after this allotment of rank and
function, all act consonant with the will of the gods keeps the
sequence and is included under the providential government, for
the Reason-Principle of providence is god-serving.
All such right-doing, then, is linked to Providence; but it is
not therefore performed by it: men or other agents, living or
lifeless, are causes of certain things happening, and any good
that may result is taken up again by Providence. In the total,
then, the right rules and what has happened amiss is transformed
and corrected. Thus, to take an example from a single body, the
Providence of a living organism implies its health; let it be
gashed or otherwise wounded, and that Reason-Principle which
governs it sets to work to draw it together, knit it anew, heal
it, and put the affected part to rights.
In sum, evil belongs to the sequence of things, but it comes from
necessity. It originates in ourselves; it has its causes no
doubt, but we are not, therefore, forced to it by Providence:
some of these causes we adapt to the operation of Providence and
of its subordinates, but with others we fail to make the
connection; the act instead of being ranged under the will of
Providence consults the desire of the agent alone or of some
other element in the Universe, something which is either itself
at variance with Providence or has set up some such state of
variance in ourselves.
The one circumstance does not produce the same result wherever it
acts; the normal operation will be modified from case to case:
Helen's beauty told very differently on Paris and on Idomeneus;
bring together two handsome people of loose character and two
living honourably and the resulting conduct is very different; a
good man meeting a libertine exhibits a distinct phase of his
nature and, similarly, the dissolute answer to the society of
their betters.
The act of the libertine is not done by Providence or in
accordance with Providence; neither is the action of the good
done by Providence- it is done by the man- but it is done in
accordance with Providence, for it is an act consonant with the
Reason-Principle. Thus a patient following his treatment is
himself an agent and yet is acting in accordance with the
doctor's method inspired by the art concerned with the causes of
health and sickness: what one does against the laws of health is
one's act, but an act conflicting with the Providence of
medicine.
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